Impact of the 2001 World Trade Center attack on critical interdependent infrastructures

This work investigates the impact of the 2001 World Trade Center attack on critical infrastructure systems in the New York City metropolitan area. Of particular interest are the physical or logical connections - also known as interdependencies - among these systems, and the results of disruptions associated with the attack on them. Prior research on infrastructure interdependence has concentrated on modeling the consequences of interdependencies among impacted infrastructure systems. This work catalogues and analyzes reports of impacts to interdependent infrastructure systems associated with the 2001 World Trade Center attack. The results suggest that there were impacts to various types of interdependencies among nearly all critical infrastructure systems. Moreover, impacts continued to be reported throughout the one hundred day period following the attack. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible strategies for improving understanding of infrastructure interdependencies and for managing them during an emergency response.